1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a print media processing apparatus having a printing function and to a media transportation control method for the print media processing apparatus.
2. Related Art
Printers having a function for printing to slips such as personal and business checks are known. Magnetic ink characters and images may be printed on such checks, and multifunction printers having a magnetic ink character reader (MICR) and image scanner disposed along the media transportation path for reading the magnetic ink character information and imaging the checks before printing on either or both sides of the check are also known. To print on a slip, the slip is held stationary at the printing position while the carriage is moved to print. See, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Appl. Pub. JP-A 2005-228246. Note that printing as used herein includes printing text and graphics.
Slips such as personal checks, business checks, and bank checks may vary in length, but regardless of the length of the slip, printing usually starts with the trailing end of the slip set to the standby position of the carriage after the magnetic ink character reading and imaging processes are completed.
Processed slips thus include forms of different lengths, and the size of the printing area on the slips also differs according to the type of form. Business checks, for example, are typically longer than personal checks, and the printing area measured along the length of the check is therefore also longer. The carriage typically prints while moving from the right edge to the left edge of the printing area, and printing does not necessarily fill all of the printing area. For example, if the print data printed on a personal check is printed with left justification on a business check, only a portion of the printing area on the business check may be printed on and printing does not actually start until after the carriage is moved.
When only a portion of the printing area is printed on, printers of the related art that start printing after setting the trailing end of the slip to the standby position of the print head regardless of the slip size must therefore move the carriage to the position where printing actually starts before starting to print, which increases the delay until printing starts.
In addition, because the trailing end of the slip is positioned at the standby position of the carriage regardless of the type of slip, business checks that are longer than personal checks must be transported farther than personal checks before printing can start. If only a portion of the printing area on the business check is to be printed, however, it is not necessary to position the trailing end of the slip to the stand by position of the carriage. It is sufficient to set the position from where printing actually starts to the standby position of the carriage. Therefore, transporting the check the difference in the length of the slips is therefore wasted effort.
Printers of the related art that start printing after setting the trailing end of all slips to the standby position of the carriage regardless of slip length or type thus suffer from a longer delay until printing starts, waste time and effort conveying forms, and thus inhibit achieving higher printer throughput.